Say Goodnight, 1972

Say Goodnight she said as they walked from the kitchen/ toward the front door/ while I lagged behind/ slurping cold sugary coffee from the cups/ on the deserted table just a moment before brimming with raucous laughter/ lowered voices lit cigarettes they walk through the screen door /whoosh and slam onto the front porch voices from the pavement linger /a new conversation starts tiny stars puncture a black sky/ my brother dreams of infinity from his bedroom window/ he helps me to imagine possibilities as the thick night summer air grabs me by the throat/ my mother says Say Goodnight as she pushes me forward /my mother is still waving I watch them walk toward their Chevrolet as far as my lazy eye will allow my father is washing the coffee cups in the kitchen sink/ as my mother rubs at the dark circles under her eyes /I turn on the television wished a new day had already begun/ afraid to close my eyes /afraid to sleep alone /without the light on which my father insists stays off/ I cry as my mother says /upstairs/ then say goodnight /my mother says/Say goodnight.

Michelle Reale is the author of several poetry collections, including Season of Subtraction (Bordighera Press, 2019) and Blood Memory (Idea Press, 2021) and Confini: Poems of Refugees in Sicily (Cervena Barva Press, 2022). She is the Founding and Managing Editor for both OVUNQUE SIAMO: New Italian-American Writing and The Red Fern Review.